In the previous article, we made the case for unavoidable pain and avoidable suffering. Let’s move on to a different kind of suffering that is unavoidable.
In Richard Rohr’s book “Falling Upward”, he refers to “Necessary Suffering.” In the Center For Action and Contemplation’s latest edition of “Oneing,” Paul Swanson channels Rohr by saying that :
“Necessary Suffering” is found in the context of your unique life, time, and place. You cannot hide from it, no matter how much you try. It’s “necessary” not because it’s needed to sustain the basics of life, but because the conditions require full and open-eyed acknowledgment to engage in life abundantly, without illusionary thinking. Those who embrace this inescapable and necessary suffering drop the games of resistance to painfully learn that “necessary suffering will always feel like dying.” This dying is the pearl of great price. This dying is when you remove your performative mask and learn to see from the face that was yours before you were born. “
Your ’performative mask’ is your Ego that was formed after you were born. The ‘face that was yours before you were born’ is your soul child that existed in God from all eternity, what we traditionally called your immortal soul. Letting go of all the attachments and addictions that your Ego/False Self have depended upon surely feels like the dying that Rohr refers to. We experience it as suffering. It is the “falling upward” of falling back into our soul child who was “in Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” Yes , it feels like dying, and we suffer intensely because our Ego is humiliated, shamed, denied, lost.
Swanson goes on to say: “These lessons don’t come easy. As Fr. Richard writes, “before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.’ But when you relate to your own necessary suffering with a tender heart, you also learn to touch the suffering of the world with growing compassion. Seeds of interdependence and solidarity are watered. Necessary suffering is the compost of life. It is the place of resurrection.”
But before the resurrection, we are ‘crossed up’ with the necessary suffering of being a very imperfect human being. We hear Jesus say : “Anyone who wants to save his life, must lose it. Anyone who loses her life will find it. What gain is there if you win the whole world and lose your very self? What can you offer in exchange for your one life?…………(and further on Jesus says), “Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me.”
Suffering does not have to involve crucifixion for us. It can just be giving up whining “why me?” It doesn’t have to be a crippling accident, paralysis, blindness, an amputation as suffered by thousands of our brothers and sisters. It can just be the drudgery of exhausting physical, emotional, or mental work. It can be the boredom of routine duty, responsibility, caring service.
Swanson goes on to channel one of my mentors: Carl Jung [1875-1961, chronologically parallel to my maternal grandfather, from whom I get the name Salvatore]. “Jung said that so much unnecessary suffering comes into the world because people will not accept the “legitimate suffering” that comes from being human. In fact, he said neurotic behavior is usually the result of refusing that legitimate suffering ! Ironically, this refusal of the necessary pain of being human brings to the person ten times more suffering in the long run. It is no surprise that the first and always unwelcome message in male initiation rights is ‘life is hard’. We really are our own worst enemy when we deny this.
Now we can go back to Brenda Shoshanna, (Zen Miracles), where she continues 40 pages later on necessary suffering leading to compassion. It is reassuring to see how Jesus and his followers, Richard Rohr, Carl Jung, and Paul Swanson are all on the same page with Buddha and his followers. Naturally, necessary suffering leads us directly to compassion. This was all exemplified so beautifully by St. Teresa of Calcutta.
On page 52, Shoshanna continues on the theme of necessary suffering as opposed to the avoidable suffering she wrote about on page 15: “Life arises as it arises. It is our demand that it turn out differently, that causes our suffering and the suffering we inflict upon others. We demand that we live forever, never seeing the beauty of aging or older people. We demand that everyone loves us (no matter who), that we make no mistakes, eat only fine food, stay beautiful forever, get what we think is our just due. We go to all lengths to secure these illusions, including putting our true lives at risk. We hide from illness, tragedy, old age and loneliness, abandoning those who are experiencing them. We refuse sorrow and ugliness, not realizing that the ugliness and sorrow are inside of us. Then we wonder why we suffer, trapped in a life without a way out.
“The door to escape is through ordinary moments, through persevering in zazen (sitting meditation), and through giving attention to our daily tasks. As we do this, little by little, our ability to bear reality increases, and our suffering subsides. We become of value to others, as we leave nothing uncared for lying around.
‘Zen is just picking up your coat from the floor and hanging it up’. -Ancient Zen saying.
“Not only do we pick up our coats from the floor, but we pick up whatever else is lying there, including people who need to be regarded with respect and love. “
I AM SURE THAT Teresa of Calcutta meditated on this many times, along with everything that Jesus says about carrying our crosses in His footsteps. One of the foremost leaders of compassion in the 20th Century.
Sal Umana 